David Lintern reflects on time spent in Assynt One of the most intriguing things about a few days solo backpacking… or in this case packrafting… is the joining up of thoughts seemingly unconnected. The ebb and flow, a continuity of activity that connects the otherwise disparate. Thoughts rise and others fall, and because I’m constantly moving these thoughts are allowed the space to come and go. There is also the wakefulness that comes from immersion in the back country over hours that become days – a paying of attention to raindrops and their patterns on the loch, the waves of…

The natural world, like the human world, is awash with celebrity. A lists, B lists and everything underneath. It’s entirely imposed upon it by us, of course, and for better or worse it tends to be how conservation works, with some animals and habitats being ‘causes célèbres’ and others being……well…..the opposite. On the one hand we have the animals that tabloid newspapers might describe as ‘sexy’. In Scotland that might be eagles, otters, red deer. The animals that seem to have their own publicity machine to grab headlines, get their images shared on Twitter and generate public interest with relative…

I think it’s safe to say I’m more interested in nature now than I was 15 years ago. That’s when the outdoors went from being my hobby to being my passion. But even before then I had a passing interest in nature, and tended to notice the obvious wildlife on my walks. That interest has since grown exponentially, such that I now also notice the smaller and better camouflaged creatures around me. And yet, in all my years of hillwalking, biking, camping, of being out & about in Scotland’s wild places, there’s one small and camouflaged creature in particular that…

If you had to describe each Scottish season using just one colour, which would you choose? Well, firstly, let’s overlook the fact that every season can feel like October in some years and let’s assume there are the traditional four. Would you perhaps choose the verdant green of grass or trees for summer? The rusty brown of leaves or bracken for autumn? The harsh white of frost or snow for winter? But what about spring? If you had to sum up the season of regrowth in one colour, what would you choose? I’d like to nominate yellow. Not because of…

Linda Cracknell is an-award winning Highlands-based writer known for her creative approach to exploring wild places and man’s interaction with them. Her Walkhighlands’ essays cover the cultural aspects of the Scottish landscape on a quarterly basis. Always keen to make my travel interesting, I arrived as guest reader on a travel writing course at Moniack Mhor having made a four-day journey on foot. I chose a route which began with an east-to-west crossing over the Corrieyairack Pass from Laggan to Fort Augustus through the Monadhliath mountains, and then walked north along the Great Glen Way. There’s something about Moniack Mhor.…